A personal computer (hereinafter also referred to as PC) uses a larger display component than a mobile information terminal such as a cellular phone. Therefore, there has been a case where plural applications share one screen. The display regions of respective applications are included in one screen and guidance is displayed for each display region.
On the other hand, the screen of a display component (such as a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)) of the mobile information terminal is smaller in size and lower in resolution with the conventional technology so that guidance display is performed with one application occupying the entire screen. However, recent advances in the enlargement of the screen size and increase of the screen resolution have allowed plural applications to share one screen. In this case, it is desired also in the mobile information terminal to include display regions of respective applications in one screen and to display guidance for each display region. The screen size of the mobile information terminal, however, cannot be enlarged as in the case of the PC. Consequently, the guidance has been displayed in a very limited space.
A guidance display device which displays guidance of operations in a conventional information processing terminal such as a cellular phone adopts a method of determining soft key display contents and displaying the determined contents on a screen using a calling state function priority table showing priorities of displaying functions to be displayed for respective calling states of the cellular phone and a soft key function priority table showing functions with respective priorities to be assigned to respective soft keys (e.g. refer to Patent Reference 1). A function which varies depending on a state can be assigned to one soft key, as an operation action taken when the soft key is pressed. In the cellular phone disclosed in the Patent Reference 1, functions are assigned to four soft keys. The positions in which guidance corresponding to the assigned functions are displayed are then determined and the guidance is displayed at the determined positions.
Furthermore, another conventional guidance display device adopts a method with which a control unit, which manages a current state of a cellular phone and a valid key, obtains guidance information relating to the current state of the valid key from a guidance database, copies a layout of the key and displays the guidance information (e.g. refer to Patent Reference 2). The conventional guidance display device disclosed in the Patent Reference 2 judges whether or not a guidance display is necessary based on an internal state of the terminal, obtains the guidance information corresponding to the current state from an operation guidance information database, displays the obtained guidance information, and judges whether or not a key operation is a valid input when the key is operated.
Furthermore, other conventional guidance display device adopts a method of displaying, from among guidance display contents for each window, guidance display contents corresponding to an active window (e.g. refer to Patent Reference 3). The conventional guidance display method disclosed in the Patent Reference 3 displays, from among the guidance contents for respective sets of windows, guidance contents corresponding to an active window which receives a keyboard input.    Patent Reference 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 9-149129    Patent Reference 2: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2000-91940    Patent Reference 3: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 10-97402
However, it is necessary for the aforementioned conventional technologies to determine, at the system design level, guidance display contents corresponding to respective states of the system in accordance with a screen layout and an operation specification.
Accordingly, the following problems are raised in the case where one screen is made up of plural display regions. It should be noted that “one screen” indicates not a display component (a display) such as a LCD and a liquid crystal of an information processing terminal such as a cellular phone, but contents to be displayed on a display of a device.
For example, the one screen is made up of one or more display regions (700, 701, 702 and 703) as shown in FIG. 1. The display regions to be operated by a user are the display region 701 shown in FIG. 1A and the display region 702 shown in FIG. 1B. The screen shown in FIG. 1C is generated by superimposing the display region 702 on the display region 701.
Conventionally, it is necessary to generate guidance for the display region 701 shown in FIG. 1A and guidance for the display region 701 shown in FIG. 1B at the system design level.
The first problem is that an appropriate displaying of guidance on the screen cannot be performed if there is even a portion of the display regions on the screen where an operation specification, display contents and the like relating to the displaying of guidance is not clear in advance.
For example, on the screen as shown in FIG. 1, an appropriate displaying of guidance cannot be performed if the display contents and the operation specification of the display region 702 are not clear even if the display contents and operation specifications of other display regions 700 and 701 have been known. Specifically, FIG. 1 shows a screen on which contents of image data made up of four display regions 700 to 703 are browsed and up-and-down keys are used for an operation of switching image data (such as data 1 and data 2) to be browsed. The application for actually displaying image data can be freely replaced by downloading and the like. The display contents of the downloaded application are then displayed in the display region 702, and guidance of an entire screen is displayed in the display region 703.
The guidance display of the upward and downward arrows indicating valid and invalid of the up-and-down keys used for data switching can be previously set. However, the guidance of a key used for operation of the downloaded application and the guidance indicating a state of the downloaded application is not clear until the application is downloaded so that they cannot be determined at the system design level.
For example, the application having a playback function displays a “playback” as key operation guidance as shown in FIG. 1, and the application having an editing function displays an “editing” in this case. Further, in the case where the application does not receive any key operations, there is a possibility that nothing is displayed.
Similarly, with respect to the guidance indicating a state of an application, the application having a playback function displays the states such as “playback” and “stop”. Also, there is a possibility that the application which requires time for playback displays “in preparation” and the like.
As described above, the guidance display contents on the entire screen vary depending on a specification of the application to be downloaded so that the conventional technology which requires to predetermine the guidance display contents cannot perform appropriate displaying of guidance.
The second problem is that, for example, in the case where the layout of the display regions on the screen is changed as shown in FIG. 2 due to a customization and a change of display size by the user, a displaying of guidance appropriate to the changed layout cannot be performed.
Specifically, as shown in FIG. 2, the pre-change layout screen includes four display regions 800 to 803, in which the display region 802 is included in the display region 801. The post-change layout screen newly adds the display regions 804 and 805, in which the display region 802 is no longer included in the display region 802 and the display regions 802, 803 and 804 are arranged in parallel on the display region 805. Also, the contents of the guidance to be displayed on respective display regions are predetermined. The display region 801 displays upward-and-downward arrows indicating valid and invalid of the up-and-down keys used for data switching operation. The display region 802 displays “playback” indicating that display data has been played back by a soft key and “stop” indicating a state where the playback has been stopped. The display region 804 displays upward-and-downward arrows indicating valid and invalid of the up-and-down keys used for group switching operation. The display region 805 displays rightward-and-leftward arrows indicating valid and invalid of the right-and-left keys used for selecting a display region to be operated from among the display regions 801, 802 and 804.
In such case, in the pre-change layout screen, the display regions which require guidance are only the display regions 801 and 802 having the inclusion relation. In the case where the display region 802 is to be operated, the appropriate guidance to be displayed on the entire screen is contents combining the display of upward-and-downward arrows in the display region 801 and the display of “playback” and “stop” in the display region 802 as shown in FIG. 2. On the other hand, in the post-change layout screen, the display region 802 is included in the display region 805 so that the appropriate guidance to be displayed on the entire screen, in the case where the display region 802 is to be operated, is contents combining the rightward, leftward, upward and downward arrows in the display region 805 and the display of “playback” and “stop” in the display region 802. In addition, since the display regions 801, 802 and 804 are arranged in parallel on the post-change layout screen, the display regions to be operated are changed. In the case where the operation targets are changed to the display regions 801 and 804, it is necessary to respectively display, as the guidance of the entire screen, contents combining the guidance displays of the display regions 801 and 805 and the display regions 804 and 805. Accordingly, even if the contents to be displayed as guidance on each display region are previously known, the displaying of guidance on the entire screen varies depending on a layout of each display region. Therefore, in the case where the post-change layout is not previously known, an appropriate displaying of guidance cannot be performed with the conventional technology.
In order to overcome the conventional problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a guidance display device which can appropriately display guidance display contents corresponding to changes of screen display contents, layout, operation specification and the like.